Mark Robinson emerged from the dressing room after a long meeting with our players today and he felt that it was an important discussion at Cambridge.
Speaking after the 1-0 defeat, Robbo said: “The lads were really upset, so it was important that I let them speak. A lot of it was anger, so you’ve got to let them get that out, before you can get some other conversations going. My job is then to start picking the bones out of it, helping them to understand what bits are not really relevant, and what we have to improve upon. Then the discussions started to flow, and I said what I needed to say.
"It was important that we thrashed it out because they are really hurting. We ended up having conversations that were worthwhile having.
“It was a good meeting as some people that are normally quiet started to find their voice, so it was important that I let that run. I want everyone to have a voice, so that we can move on and start winning football matches.
“I am deeply disappointed for the fans. We don’t want to be in a relegation battle, we want to be working towards the top of the table. We want to get the fans really excited and reward their loyalty. It’s not just the fact that the fans turned out to watch us, it is their attitude towards us. The fans stayed behind the lads because I think they can see that the players care, but we need to turn in better performances, and we need to start picking up wins.”
Our Head Coach added that the squad didn't execute the gameplan today and that led to defeat.
“Cambridge play a mid-block, so there wasn’t space to get in behind. We had to try and hurt them in different ways, which we had worked on, in terms of how we would get momentum against them. When they get in your final third they can play, so you’ve got to get momentum, so that they cannot do that. I felt that towards the end of the first-half we did that a bit better.
"The lads keep talking about giving away cheap goals, and they are right, but if we were fundamentally better with the ball we wouldn’t be spending as much time defending certain situations, such as defending long throws and corners when they were obviously bigger than us.
"Technically we were not good enough to implement our style, and the things we had worked on. We didn’t move the ball well enough, and execute enough passes and crosses with quality.”
Pic credit: Ian Stephen, Pro Sports Images.
Click on the link below to listen to Robbo's full post-match interview.